send me blue valentines
by of starlight
Summary: It was funny that even after all of this, Rachel still hated Valentine's day. kol/rachel


**entitled;** send me blue valentines  
><strong>summary; <strong>_It was funny that even after all of this, Rachel still hated Valentine's day._  
><strong>rating;<strong> T  
><strong>disclaimer;<strong>i own nothing. otherwise kol would have been shirtless his first day undaggered.  
><strong>notes;<strong> i have a problem. it's called being a shipwhore.

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><p><strong>send me blue valentines (like half forgotten dreams)<strong>

**.**

_to send me blue valentines_  
><em>like half forgotten dreams<em>  
><em>like a pebble in my shoe<em>  
><em>as I walk these streets<em>  
><em>and the ghost of your memory<br>is the thistle in the kiss  
>and the burgler that can break a roses neck<br>it's the tatooed broken promise  
>that I hide beneath my sleeve<br>and I see you every time I turn my back  
><em>

- blue valentines tom waits

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><p>It was funny that even after all of this, Rachel still hated Valentine's day; she'd broken up with Jesse one year. Broken up with Finn another, and had entirely lost Damon this last year because of her being turned into a vampire. Because she'd given up on everything and gave into the bloodlust because he was gone. He'd left her and she'd severed every friendship she had with everyone else.<p>

It hurt. A lot.

"Darling, what are you doing out here?"

The soft, melodic voice that came from behind her made her jump; Kol was quite literally right behind her.

She found it funny that she was a vampire, yet she still couldn't bring herself to grow accustomed to people suddenly popping up around her. Or well, at least, it had gotten strange now that she was letting herself feel again.

"It's a beautiful night." she murmured, turning to look at him with the smallest of smiles.

It was still very strange to her, being in this man's company; he was… so very wrong in the head at times. He was very narcissistic at times, even more so than Damon ever was, and he loved nothing more than he loved causing trouble for his brother.

But he still found it in his very still, black heart, to take Rachel under his wing when everyone else had shunned her.

It was very, very strange.

In all honesty, she still found herself wondering if he was plotting to use her in some scheme or other against his brother; it was what he had become increasingly obsessed with since he was un-daggered.

Or maybe against Damon himself, who'd snapped his neck the night of the ball.

But she couldn't bring herself to believe that; Damon had made it quite clear just how much he wanted nothing to do with her anymore, so the idea of Kol using her against Damon seemed highly unlikely.

"That it is." Kol stated, a light nod as he moved to stand beside her, leaning against the metal railing of the balcony on their current home. It was a lovely, and all too extravagant manor in Barcelona, "But that isn't why you've alienated yourself all day."

Rachel turned to look at him, a delicate brow lifting upwards before she sighed softly and shook her head, "It is not."

"Did I do something to upset you again?" he asked, brows furrowing on that handsome face.

"No, Kol, you didn't." she answered quickly, reaching out to cup his cheek, a sad smile on her lips.

She shouldn't have been so gentle with this man, really. He had his moments, but he was rarely gentle himself, and to see him as she was seeing him now was a rare moment that she often never once allowed herself to appreciate. She was constantly holding all he'd done against him.

But she couldn't bring herself to do it at that moment.

"Ah, well, if you say so." he murmured, placing his hand over hers, bringing it down to hold it in between both of his as he pressed his lips lightly to her knuckles, "I got you something."

It was her turn to furrow her brows as she looked at him, trying to refrain from jumping to any conclusions; she'd done so far too often and had almost always come out on the wrong end. He was always surprising her.

"And why would you do that?" Rachel asked, as he led her back inside by the hand.

"It's St. Valentine's Day."

"You know about Valentine's day?"

He turned and gave her a pointed look, "I spent a little over 100 years in a coffin, darling, I know about St. Valentine's Day. Though, I wasn't to sure why people made such a spectacle about it."

"You mean you don't understand why they would use a day that a man was killed for marrying off a couple as a celebration of love?" Rachel asked, a delicate brow quirking upwards as she smiled at the scowl that formed on his face, "If it makes you feel better, a majority of the people who celebrate it don't understand, either."

"Why would that make me feel better?" he asked, the scowl still present on his face.

Rachel simply rolled her eyes as they walked around the house, "What are you doing?"

"Making sure Bekah isn't home. If she finds out about this, she'll never let me live it down." Kol told her, before finally walking her to his room and shutting the door behind them.

"You better not try anything funny." Rachel spewed out quickly, eyes narrowing, "I've already told you that nothing is happening between you and I. Physical or otherwise."

Kol shook his head, a small smirk slipping onto his lips, "I still think a little more time and you'd break, but that's not what this is about."

Rachel glared at him, putting her hands on her hips before asking, "Then what is this about?"

Kol hesitated for a brief moment before pulling open a drawer from the table beside his bed. From it he pulled out an envelope and handed it to her, "Elijah brought this with him when he came to visit last week."

She glanced at Kol as she took the letter from him, before looking down at the simple white envelope. Scrawled on the front in clean, black cursive was her name.

"If Elijah brought this, it isn't from you." Rachel told him pointedly, a faint smile on her lips even as she turned the envelope over to tear it open.

"That will come after." he told her, a reassuring, though seemingly sad smile on his lips.

Frowning at his expression, Rachel nodded and turned her full attention to the folded sheet of white stationary she pulled from the envelope.

_Rachel,_

_I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm writing, or where you are or how I'm even going to get this to you. __I don't do letters. __They're stupid. __C__heesy. __Ridiculous. __All too Stefan and Edward Cullen for my taste._

_But it's Valentine's Day next week._

_And the thought of that stupid holiday has me thinking about the insanity that you would be causing over the holiday - how is that even a holiday? - if you were here. __Or at least the insanity I'm - miraculously - hoping you would be causing._

…

_I'm not good with talking about feelings. __Or even writing them down. __Not like you are. __Which is why it took me until it was too late to realize that I should have pulled these words out of my ass a long time ago. __I miss you. __Not the vampire you, that I detest at times. __Because you weren't right. You weren't you. __But the human you. The Rachel that I abandoned at the wrong time, when she needed me the most. __I miss her like you have no idea. _

_And I know… I know it won't ever be the same. __You're a vampire. __You've got a taste of what living like Klaus and Kol is. __And I shouldn't have held that against you. __I was like that once, and you didn't hold it against me._

_Not once. __No matter how often I messed up. __I'm sorry. __And wherever you are, if you're reading this… Remember that I love you. Not Katherine. Not Elena. You. __And if there's still the smallest shred of humanity left in you…. If there's any little spark, or emotion in you while you're reading this. Come back.  
><em>

_Come back and we'll work through this. Because I don't know how much longer I can take not knowing where you are, or if you're coming back._

… _Have a nice Valentine's Day, Rachel._

_-Damon._

Rachel was paralyzed.

She was positive that if her heart was still beating, she would have been dead by now because she'd held her breath the entire time.

"I know you want to go back to him. To all of them." Kol told her, and she blinked, almost having forgotten that he was still in the room, "You'd forgive them in a second if it meant going back."

"Why didn't Elijah give this to me?" Rachel croaked, ignoring his words and gripping the letter tightly in her hands as she looked back up at him.

"We may never show it, Rachel, but we are family." Kol started, avoiding her gaze and fingering the buttons on his vest, "He was intent on giving me the choice by giving the letter to me instead of giving it to you."

Rachel cleared her throat, watching him carefully, "And what choice would that be?"

He turned to meet her gaze with a rather intense one of his own; it sent shivers running down her spine, "The choice of keeping you here, or letting you go. Though, really I'm paraphrasing a great deal if you ask him directly."

Rachel scowled, hating that he was starting with the word games again; it was infuriating when he did that. Still, her scowled faded into a look of confusion when he pulled another envelope from the same drawer and handed it to her as well, "Basically, it was your happiness or mine."

Inside that envelope, however, was two tickets. A one-way ticket to Atlanta, Georgia, and a bus ticket from there to Mystic Falls, Virginia.

Her breath caught in her throat, and all she could utter was a soft, "Kol…"

When she looked up, there was a smirk on his lips, but his eyes were sad, even as he spoke, "You've been so annoyingly moody lately. The whole point of this was to have someone around who knew how to have fun. And that entire personality seems to have flown out the window."

Rachel scowled and found herself reaching out to punch him in the arm, but all that did was pull a chuckle from him; a sound she often associated with all kinds of trouble, seeing as that was his favorite pass time.

"Oh come now, how can you expect me to be happy when you're killing the fun, and Rebekah's always doing some ridiculous thing or other?" he shrugged, a motion that to anyone else would have seemed extremely nonchalant, but Rachel had come to know this man a lot better than he gave her credit for.

Before she was able to comment on it, however, he was speaking again, "Now, my last gift-"

"Another one?" she asked incredulously, "This kindness in you has to be a record of some kind, honestly."

Kol glared at her, a very Kol glare that made her think twice about calling him kind again.

"Sorry." she mumbled.

"As I was saying," he continued, his glare falling to a much less terrifying scowl as he turned back towards the drawer and pulled out a long, rectangular gift wrapped in silver and tied together with a pale pink bow, "The chances of us seeing each other again after this are slim to none, so I thought I'd give you this to remember me by. Because I know just how difficult it will be for you to live without me."

Rachel let out a very un-lady like snort as she took the box from his hands, rolling her eyes at the smirk on his lips, "I would just die without you, Kol."

Looking down at the box, Rachel couldn't help thinking he was being ridiculous; they were vampires. They could do anything, go anywhere they wanted for many years to come.

But one look into his eyes told her all she needed to know.

If she went back to Mystic Falls, if she chose Damon over him, he would go out of his way to avoid her for the remainder of their existence.

And though that knowledge hurt, she knew it was probably for the best.

Giving him a tense nod, Rachel carefully unwrapped the box, gasping softly once she'd unwrapped the entire thing.

In her hands, Rachel held a glass box that contained a single white rose, which seemed to be suspended by some invisible force right in the middle of its glass case.

"Kol… This is beautiful." she murmured, looking up at him.

"I had a witchy little friend of mine in Venice spell it in place." Kol explained, keeping his gaze fixed intently on the glass box, "It's also spelled to stay alive as long as I'm still up and walking. So you'll know Rebekah hasn't offed me."

Rachel let out a weak laugh, hoping to blink away the tears she knew were coming, "Thank you, Kol."

He gave a light shrug, as if it was nothing, when Rachel knew this had to be something of incredible difficulty for him to do; Kol didn't do things like this. For anyone, "I simply figured you would appreciate this a tad more than any of the trivial, material possessions Rebekah was insisting on.

It was that simple statement that made Rachel lean forward and press her lips against his in a chaste kiss; she would never love him the way she loved Damon, but she'd come to feel a great deal for this man and he deserved to know that much.

He deserved to know that she did care, no matter how often she acted like she hated him.

It was for the best really, that she leave. Kol didn't know how to properly love someone, and she wasn't the one who would show him how, not when he didn't want to.

So she told herself that it was much better for both of them this way.

Pulling back, she whispered one last thing in his ear before turning on her heel, with the full intent of heading straight for the airport where she would fly back to the man she loved.

"Happy Valentine's day, Kol."

**[end.]**


End file.
